The canal ring, early September 2024.

The three great canals — Herengracht, Keizersgracht and Prinsengracht — were cut in the seventeenth century as a single planned expansion, and the houses along them are narrow because frontage was taxed. They lean and tilt because the whole city stands on wooden piles driven through peat into sand, and many are deliberately pitched forward so goods hoisted to the top floor clear the windows below.